10 Places With Geological Features That Shouldn’t Exist (4 of 6)

Fly Geyser

Nevada’s Fly Geyser looks like a science-fiction prop. It shoots steaming water into the air from colorful mineral towers stained red, orange, and green. But the weirdest part is that such a geological conundrum should not even exist in the first place. Human drilling accidentally opened the door to superheated underground water, and nature took it from there. Over time, minerals built up around the vent and created the geyser’s strange shape. The vivid colors come from heat-loving algae growing in the hot water. So this place is basically like Bob Ross’s happy little accident, mixing together geology, biology, and human error.

Giant’s Causeway

Around 40,000 basalt columns rise along the coast of Northern Ireland, and most of them are hexagonal. That kind of precision and consistency seems suspicious, which is why a local legend says the giant Finn McCool built it as a bridge to Scotland. The real answer is much less fantastical. A long time ago, lava cooled and shrank, becoming the Giant’s Causeway. When cooling happens evenly, it often creates geometric shapes, especially hexagons. It wants to be round, but physics doesn’t allow that, so the best it can do is six sides. Even though the science checks out, it still looks man-made.